December 2020 W.I.S.H. - Finding Delight

[Oneanne]

Welcome to the December 2020 W.I.S.H. (We're Inspired to Stay Healthy) challenge - Finding Delight!

We're here to support each other with kindness as we each work on becoming or staying healthy during these trying times. Everyone is invited, and we're looking forward to catching up with regulars and welcoming newcomers! So hop aboard and post your personal goals.

We have weekly volunteer hosts, and typically follow a Monday-Sunday format:

Motivation Monday,
Topic Tuesday,
WOOHOO Wednesday,
Thankful Thursday,
Free For All Friday,
Social Saturday &
Self-Care Sunday.

This month's hosts
Nov 30 - Dec 6 --- Onenanne
Dec 7 - Dec 13 ---
Dec 14 - Dec 20 --- MickeysMom76
Dec 21 - Dec 27 --- Summer2018



or

 

[Oneanne]

MOTIVATION MONDAY

Let's start the monthly introductions with what is motivating you this week and this month, the last month of 2020? How can you wrap up this challenging year with some delight?

 

[Oneanne]

Hi Hi. I'm Lizanne a life-long chaser of healthy living, currently residing in wet and blustery Seattle.

My goal for December is to make it a solid month of consistently making good food, exercise and mental health choices.

My motivation this week - persistence. After three times of re-doing the outdoor lights I think I figured out what was wrong and now have them set up better... they did stay on all night last night. I even added some to the flower boxes on the front porch, so I can see and enjoy my own lights. I think there's a metaphor in there that I need to apply to healthy living - keep at it. Re-do it until something sticks. Keep tweaking. Enjoy your efforts.

 

[Oneanne]

 

[Oneanne]

 

[Oneanne]

 

[piglet1979]

Hi, I am Stephanie from Northeast Ohio. I have been having my ups and downs with weight loss for a few years. I lose about 10 pounds then I gain them back and maybe a few more pounds. This has been rough as I am not moving as much as I do when I am in the office. I am at my heaviest at about 160 but I am only 4'9 so this is pretty high. We did buy a treadmill in September to help with not being able to go to the gym. My goal is to get 10,000 each day. This will be about 90 minutes on the treadmill each day. My plan is to do an hour on my lunch and then 30 minutes after work.

We are supposed to get a winter storm starting this afternoon. It is raining now and will switch to a general snow (snow that will cover the whole area) and then lake affect snow. Lake affect for those that don't know targets specific areas off the lake (for us Lake Erie). The east side of Cleveland is the called the snow belt. They get the most lake affect snow because of the way the wind typically blows off lake (when the wind blows more west to east) and creates bands of snow storms. I am in the secondary belt. We get the bands of lake affect snow when the wind blows down from Canada. My county is supposed to 8-12 inches of snow. It looks like the most will be in the snow belt and my area will get closer to the 8 inches. Still a lot of snow and the most snow we have gotten in about a year. Last year we didn't get much snow at all. It was weird. We got more rain. This year I don't mind the snow. We don't have anywhere to be and I don't have to drive to work at the moment. So we will put this as maybe one of the only positives to the pandemic.

 

[MickeyMom76]

I’m Cristin from Southeast PA. Married, mother of 16 yr old twins, & kindergarten teacher. I’ve been struggling to maintain healthy eating during this pandemic. My focus has been mostly on my mental health, which has given in to comfort eating. Ugh. I keep going back and forth between healthy eating and giving in to unhealthy snacking.

My goal for December is to try to lose a few pounds by focusing on my eating for the first three weeks and then allow myself some Christmas treats the last week of the month. Giving myself that week to look forward to might give me the motivation I need right now. And who knows, maybe once I get to the last week I won’t feel like I need the treats.

 

[MickeyMom76]

I can host Dec 14-20

 

[Oneanne]

Topic Tuesday

Another quote from Lisa Olivera:



How are you with establishing and maintaining boundaries? Do any of the above points resonate with you? How do healthy boundaries help with good physical health?

 

[MickeyMom76]

I’d say I’ve gotten better with boundaries within the last 5 years. But the one I still struggle with is 7. I do tend to stretch myself too thin by trying to be everything for everyone. I’m definitely still working on saying no, but I am getting better. Someone once told me that saying no is giving someone else an opportunity to say yes.

 

[Summer2018]

Topic Tuesday

Another quote from Lisa Olivera:

View attachment 541284

How are you with establishing and maintaining boundaries? Do any of the above points resonate with you? How do healthy boundaries help with good physical health?

My siblings who are much older than me (DB is 13 years older and DS is 16 years older), push my boundaries to the point of emotional blackmail. When I was younger, I basically had three sets of parents because they were both married by the time I was 7. Between the alcoholism and them ganging up on me, I have had to detach myself in order to save myself and my family. I used to give into the emotional blackmail, but those days are over.

My focus is on my own mental and physical health and the health of my DD and DH.

 

[piglet1979]

I am too a yes person and rarely say no. This is something that at times I do well with saying no and other time (most of the time) I say yes.

 

[Summer2018]

I'm Summer. I live in coastal Connecticut, an hour outside of NYC. I've lost 27 pounds on Noom. This month I began to gain weight after maintaining my weight loss for months. The next three weeks, it is my goal to get back on the weight loss train. I will work to maintain over the holidays as much as possible but will not deny myself.

After one year of teaching Kindergarten, I taught PreK in a public school system for 18 years. I now teach Kindergarten again as I begin my 20th year of teaching. I am currently teaching 17 students remotely until mid January. I am concerned that will be too soon for children to return to in-person learning. I have a 23 year old daughter. Due to the pandemic, she is out of work from her supervisory position at Lord & Taylor where she's worked for 4 years. She was on track to be visual manager before the pandemic. Her last day was a successful fashion show that she organized and modeled in. Now that L&T is going out of business, she’s returned to school and is taking online classes at an Art & Design school in NYC for Fashion. I’m married to a 61 year-old essential worker and Disney lover. He drove me crazy over Thanksgiving. I’m glad that he’s back at work.

I have a feeling that December will fly by.

 

[Oneanne]

Most of my recent efforts around boundaries has been with work, which is quite challenging. The points that most resonate with me are:

4 - separating my responsibilities from those of others... I tend to feel like everything is my responsibility. Being a TPM I am the overseer, coordinator, monitor, parent, secretary, so it is challenging to draw this distinction.
7 - not being everything to everybody... which oddly enough is rooted in the feelings of not being enough. This is where needing to be able to say no manifests.
9 - don't hold onto other people's stuff... closely related to 4 and 7.

And not work related
10 - log off... man-o-man do I need to get this under control. Tonight I am going to put my phone down and craft. I have these white paint pens to draw holiday stuff on the windows with. Yesterday I became aware of a Polar Bear Hunt that is going on in the neighborhood, so one of the things I'll draw on the front kitchen window will be a polar bear.

 

[sjrec]

I think I’m pretty good with establishing boundaries-where I struggle is feeling guilty after I’ve set them!
There were so many good quotes in these posts-I think my favorite was “saying no gives someone else the opportunity to say yes”. I’m going to share that with a couple of my friends.

 

[Oneanne]

WEDNESDAY

In keeping with the theme for the month, for our woohoo's today let's talk about things that delight us. What are a couple things that have recently happened and a couple things that will happen during the month (could be actually planned things or could be visualizations of things you'd like to happen) that have/will absolutely delight you?

 

[MickeyMom76]

Woohoo - I finally see a decline on the scale! Let’s see if I can keep that trend going this month.
Woohoo - It’s time to listen to Christmas music and enjoy the holiday lights on my drive home each night.
Woohoo - we got our Christmas tree up and decorated Sunday/Monday. So I get to feel all the holiday feels when I get home from school.

Not so woohoo- the dad of one of my students has COVID. So that student is now virtual while the rest of my students are all live. I stopped by his house last night and left an envelope on his porch with materials for this week. And am planning to do it again Friday for materials for next week. The hidden woohoo here is that we have technology that will allow him to “join our class” for some lessons and allow me to meet with him after school for a little check in and one-on-one time. Also hidden woohoo is that I tend to have this need to feel appreciated and his mom mom has been full of thanks and appreciation. Fortunately is far dad’s symptoms aren’t too bad! Fingers crossed for the rest of them.

 

[Summer2018]

Woohoo - I finally see a decline on the scale! Let’s see if I can keep that trend going this month.
Woohoo - It’s time to listen to Christmas music and enjoy the holiday lights on my drive home each night.
Woohoo - we got our Christmas tree up and decorated Sunday/Monday. So I get to feel all the holiday feels when I get home from school.

Not so woohoo- the dad of one of my students has COVID. So that student is now virtual while the rest of my students are all live. I stopped by his house last night and left an envelope on his porch with materials for this week. And am planning to do it again Friday for materials for next week. The hidden woohoo here is that we have technology that will allow him to “join our class” for some lessons and allow me to meet with him after school for a little check in and one-on-one time. Also hidden woohoo is that I tend to have this need to feel appreciated and his mom mom has been full of thanks and appreciation. Fortunately is far dad’s symptoms aren’t too bad! Fingers crossed for the rest of them.

WOO HOO!!! Two days of good behavior yielded a two pound loss...water weight no doubt, but it isn't very hard to get back to good habits.

WOO HOO! My home and classroom are decorated for Christmas. I didn't bother going all out in the classroom since the kids are remote, but I put up my purple tree on my desk and the white tree by the door so that I can feel some Christmas spirit. I showed the kids, and they got excited. I'm not upset that I get a break from the Elf on a shelf. Being an overachiever, I always go all out with that.

Yesterday I did my first online assessments. One child is doing remarkably well, and she was easy to test. The other one is a very bright boy that I had last year. He didn't do well at all which was rather alarming. He couldn't sit still, and the iPad was everywhere. He really wasn't focused, and his grades will reflect that. As much as I enjoy the break from in-school discipline and the chaos of a busy school, it really is so much harder to teach this way.

Leaving for school soon, and I am looking forward to surfing the Christmas stations on my Sirius radio. Have a great day!

 

[Oneanne]

Woohoo... I picked up my new iPhone yesterday, Merry Christmas to me! Unfortunately something is wrong and it stopped loading my stuff so I need to go back in, but I will be delighted have the plus-size model again, and am really looking forward to playing around with the new camera.

Woohoo... the weather this week is delightfully rain-free with bright blue skies. I have two open blocks of time today where I can take a break and get out of the house.

Woohoo... my new desk is working out like I had hoped. It is "L" shaped so there's room to put one of the cat beds on the side section and The Girls are spending most of the day curled up together in it, which means less time laying on my keyboard. It is delightful to have them near but and still be able to type.

Woohoo... to future delightfulness. My SIL said yesterday that they are not going to go to My Sister's for Christmas as we had planned. I haven't canceled my hotel reservation yet, waiting to see what the post-Thanksgiving numbers are going to be. I'm more comfortable going if it is just going to be me, my Sis and her girlfriend, but most of all I'm thinking of how to change the celebration in to something delightfully new, not something less.